Namrata Tanna in conversation with Rupesh Shah, CEO and Co-founder of Inopen technologies, who talks about technology in education and the way forward.

What, in your opinion, is the role of technology in education?

We believe that technology is an inevitable tool for every individual. In a developing country like India, the right kind of education armed with the right kind of technology has the potential to change millions of lives. Our endeavour has been to not only provide quality content but also to make knowledge accessible to every individual by integrating our efforts with technology.

I can say that technology in education is the natural extension for the education eco -system. The kind of impact and reach that technology solutions like e-learning, online assessments, e-books and satellite classes has is overwhelming and very powerful. It's the content which matters the most. Then, if you want the content to be presented as Apps (across mobile as App stores) or as Web based learning it does not really matter. We would eventually generate e-content for new generation smart-phones and tablets.

How can early childhood education benefit from technology?

Children if exposed to technology at an early age can show remarkable ability. We believe that technology impacts a child's learning and development in the early years by building their interaction, communication and collaboration skills.

However, I also take this as a point of concern, for lot of children their gadgets sum up their world which is disturbing. I feel parent's interaction is the key. Too much exposure to gadgets and social media can result in some kind of seclusion too.

How do you hope to innovate using technology in education?

'Computer Masti' helps children to see, feel and explore technology and its different aspects in a positive sense. Computer Masti adopts a constructivist pedagogical approach, which encourages children to ask questions and explore on their own. The content apart from teaching the computer literacy skills, also teaches other concepts like stepwise thinking and logical reasoning.

We are also in the process of digitizing Computer Masti textbooks. This project is first of its kind in India, as it focuses on K-12 education. By developing Computer Masti books into e-books, we hope to customize the entire learning process for every child.

Are your products being used/ available to government schools?

InOpen is currently working with State governments of Assam, Maharashtra, Bihar and Goa. We are very happy to share that we are serving 4,50,000 Assam Government school students through our products.

It is a very interesting implementation as the entire content was written from grounds up with focus contextualisation and localisation. It is done with AMTRON. We have also created modules for Govt. of Bihar as well as Maharashtra. We have trained more than 200+ Govt. Staff on Computers.

Do you have plans to focus on the rural education sector? How?

At InOpen we are committed to create the impact at all levels such as, rural sector or urban poverty. We have set ourselves a goal that any student should be able to read the best of Computer Science in their environments. This implies content in multiple languages, multiple platforms and services in multi geographies. We focus on rural education by enhancing skills. Uneducated children have this fear about technology, however when these students use CM, they feel for themselves that technology is not a farfetched thing. These children show higher levels of confidence in handling computers, playing educational games in computers and relating themselves to the different games that they play.

For example: K-Geography, while playing this game ever though they might not have travelled the whole of India, still they can match the shape of the different states of India. As they go to higher level in the game, they are exposed to different countries and sub continents of the world. This explores their imagination, thinking skills as well as developing their general knowledge about India and other countries. CM helps these children to see, feel and explore technology and its different aspects in a positive sense.